437 research outputs found
The 18 Household Food Security Survey items provide valid food security classifications for adults and children in the Caribbean
BACKGROUND: We tested the properties of the 18 Household Food Security Survey (HFSS) items, and the validity of the resulting food security classifications, in an English-speaking middle-income country. METHODS: Survey of primary school children in Trinidad and Tobago. Parents completed the HFSS. Responses were analysed for the 10 adult-referenced items and the eight child-referenced items. Item response theory models were fitted. Item calibrations and subject scores from a one-parameter logistic (1PL) model were compared with those from either two-parameter logistic model (2PL) or a model for differential item functioning (DIF) by ethnicity. RESULTS: There were 5219 eligible with 3858 (74%) completing at least one food security item. Adult item calibrations (standard error) in the 1PL model ranged from -4.082 (0.019) for the 'worried food would run out' item to 3.023 (0.042) for 'adults often do not eat for a whole day'. Child item calibrations ranged from -3.715 (0.025) for 'relied on a few kinds of low cost food' to 3.088 (0.039) for 'child didn't eat for a whole day'. Fitting either a 2PL model, which allowed discrimination parameters to vary between items, or a differential item functioning model, which allowed item calibrations to vary between ethnic groups, had little influence on interpretation. The classification based on the adult-referenced items showed that there were 19% of respondents who were food insecure without hunger, 10% food insecure with moderate hunger and 6% food insecure with severe hunger. The classification based on the child-referenced items showed that there were 23% of children who were food insecure without hunger and 9% food insecure with hunger. In both children and adults food insecurity showed a strong, graded association with lower monthly household income (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: These results support the use of 18 HFSS items to classify food security status of adults or children in an English-speaking country where food insecurity and hunger are more frequent overall than in the US
Place of medical qualification and outcomes of UK General Medical Council âfitness to practiseâ process: cohort study
Objectives To evaluate whether country of medical qualification is associated with âhigher impactâ decisions at different stages of the UK General Medical Councilâs (GMCâs) âfitness to practiseâ process after allowing for other characteristics of doctors and inquiries
Explaining the Decline in Early Mortality in Men and Women With Type 2 Diabetes: A population-based cohort study
OBJECTIVEâThe purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that changing utilization of lipid-lowering, antihypertensive, and oral hypoglycemic drugs may be associated with trends in all-cause mortality in men and women with type 2 diabetes
Determinants of health care costs in the senior elderly: age, comorbidity, impairment, or proximity to death?
Ageing is assumed to be accompanied by greater health care expenditures but the association is also viewed as a âred herringâ. This study aimed to evaluate whether age is associated with health care costs in the senior elderly, using electronic health records for 98,220 participants aged 80 years and over registered with the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink and linked Hospital Episode Statistics (2010â2014). Annual costs of health care utilization were estimated from a two-part model; multiple fractional polynomial models were employed to evaluate the non-linear association of age with predicted health care costs while also controlling for comorbidities, impairments, and death proximity. Annual health care costs increased from 80 years (ÂŁ2972 in men, ÂŁ2603 in women) to 97 (men; ÂŁ4721) or 98 years (women; ÂŁ3963), before declining. Costs were significantly elevated in the last year of life but this effect declined with age, from ÂŁ10,027 in younger octogenarians to ÂŁ7021 in centenarians. This decline was steeper in participants with comorbidities or impairments; ÂŁ14,500 for 80â84-year-olds and ÂŁ6752 for centenarians with 7+ impairments. At other times, comorbidity and impairments, not age, were main drivers of costs. We conclude that comorbidities, impairments, and proximity to death are key mediators of age-related increases in health care costs. While the costs of comorbidity among survivors are not generally associated with age, additional costs in the last year of life decline with age
Alarm symptoms and identification of non-cancer diagnoses in primary care: cohort study
Objective To evaluate the predictive value of alarm symptoms for specified non-cancer diagnoses and cancer diagnoses in primary care
An MLE method for finding LKB NTCP model parameters using Monte Carlo uncertainty estimates
The aims of this work were to establish a program to fit NTCP models to clinical data with multiple toxicity endpoints, to test the method using a realistic test dataset, to compare three methods for estimating confidence intervals for the fitted parameters and to characterise the speed and performance of the program
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